A Pegatron plant in Shanghai, China, where rear panels for Apple’s iPad will be manufactured, suffered an explosion over the weekend which hospitalized 23 workers and injured a further 38. Though the explosion did not cause a fire, according to a Reuters report, the Pegatron factory reports there is “some damage” to machinery.

While most of the components crammed inside your iOS devices are built by low-cost Asian manufacturers, its dual-core A5 processor is actually built a little closer to home — at Samsung’s new factory in Austin, Texas.

1,000 workers at a Jingmo Electronics factory in Shenzhen, China, staged a strike earlier this week over long hours and poor working conditions. The factory supplies keyboards to companies like IBM, LG, and Apple, and China Labor Watch is now calling for these companies to improve the working conditions for the employees at the factory, focusing specifically on Apple.

We were fortunate enough to get an exclusive look at Foxconn’s new factory in Brazil earlier this week, where the company will join the Foxconn factory in China in co-producing Apple’s iPhone, and soon its iPad. Although the factory is already up and running, we’re yet to see any Brazilian built iPhones on the market.

That was until today, when Brazilian blog MacMagazine published an image of one of the first iPhone 4 units that was assembled outside of China.

Foxconn workers at the company’s plant in Yantai, a city in the northeastern Shandong province, have had to evacuate the building today as another fire and possible explosion engulfed parts of the factory in smoke. Thankfully, it seems no one has been injured.

To those of you who scoffed at Steve Wozniak when he said that machines will one day take over as superior beings, leaving us humans as the “dogs of the house,” take note: It seems Woz’ vision is very much becoming a reality for some Foxconn workers, who are set to be replaced by robots over the next three years.

Following an explosion on May 20th that killed 3 people and injured 15 others, Foxconn has today reopened its iPad 2 polishing workshops in Chengdu after an investigation into what caused the explosion has now been concluded.